


The Silence Between Breaths

by Lelelea



Series: The Dominion [3]
Category: Foundation - Isaac Asimov, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rise of Empire Era - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, The Jedi are cruel too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 08:57:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6949585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lelelea/pseuds/Lelelea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They strip him of his lightsaber, his rank and the Force.</p><p>Inside, he knows he deserves it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Silence Between Breaths

“You have been slipping for a very long time, my friend,” said Jedi Master Gladia Delamarre. Her voice was sad.

 

Baley did not reply. The pressing weight of his guilt, his shame, it forced him to bow his head. He could not meet the gazes of any of the Masters who looked at him. He kneeled in front of them, two guards at his back. The hum of their lightsabers was his only comfort in the silence.

 

Even now, he could feel the pull of the Dark Side, insistent, a cold fire that begged to coil through his veins. He had felt it, triumphant and victorious when he had seen Daneel lying facedown on the ground, even as another part of him yelled to go back, to try to save his life. It had been there, when he had slept with Jessie, whispering to him  _ that she would look so beautiful choking underneath him _

 

With a short, sharp exhale he forced himself to look up, at the dais, at his former Master condemning him. If he reached out further, he could feel the galaxy unraveling. It had been one day since the Republic had fallen, since the Jedi Temple had been set on fire. He’d felt it in the Force, the Jedi dropping one by one. The clones guarding the Tol Temple were dead, courtesy of the few Masters who had been home. Another five had stopped responding to comms. It wasn’t too difficult to guess what had happened to them. Most of the Padawans had rejoined the Force. He had seen one in the hall, a neat, smoking hole in between her wide gray eyes after he’d killed the clone who’d shot her. 

 

He hadn’t quite fallen to the Dark Side, but that cold, oozing feeling beckoned to him, called to him to take up his lightsaber and kill, kill indiscriminately, and then go to Coruscant and lay his life down in service of the Emperor and-

 

- **_the black breastplate slotted into place and his eyes were yellow, reflected in the transparisteel of the ship’s window, bright blossoms of fire on the surface of the planet below as the Destroyer fired on it. Last came the helmet and the visor slid into place and behind him he heard her say “Lije no”-_ **

 

The vision left him weak and unfocused and he felt as if he would vomit right there. His shields were shot to hell and he knew that every single of the people in that room had seen that glimpse of the future. He wanted to lash out and hide, but where would he go?

 

The remaining Jedi communicated with each other through the Force, discussing his fate and the Force felt as if it had been pulled too tight and it danced over his skin, little sparks of contact that made him break out in a cold sweat. It was driving him insane and the Force was all around him, in him, battling for power and control. His grasp on it had only become more and more tenuous as he grew older and it called to him, showing him things of unexplored places and things he had not ever dreamt of. The Jedi healer had given him sleeping draughts and shooed him away and he had never, ever been close to any of the other Jedi, preferring to keep his head down and his work ethic high. He had never been as strong in the Force as some of the others and he’d narrowly escaped being sent to Bandomeer through sheer force of will. 

 

He did not feel tame and something beyond the dark and the light called to him, something more.

 

Elijah had always felt secure, at home within the Force and now that had been taken away from him, by whom or what he could not recognize. He did not want to rebuild the Order, or go and fight the evil that crept into the edges of his vision. He did not know what he wanted. 

 

He had not noticed the Jedi Masters forming a tight circle around him. Then, Delamarre reached out to him and placed a palm on his forehead. 

 

“Elijah Baley, you are excommunicated from the Jedi Order. As punishment for the crimes you have committed, you will have your mastery of the Jedi discipline taken from you, as you have been deemed unworthy of the knowledge that was given to you in good faith.”

 

_ I’m so sorry Baley.  _ Delamarre’s voice resonated in his mind.  _ Death would have been preferable to this. _

 

_ Gladia,  _ he started.  _ What is going to happen to me? _

 

And then, he felt the Force being stripped from him, midichlorians dying one by one, screaming. This was  _ unacceptable _ , this was a  _ sin _ , why were they doing this to him, they couldn’t take the Force away from him, why, why  _ why?  _

 

He screamed, both with his voice and the Force and even as his voice gave out, the Force continued, warping around him. Dimly he could hear the Masters yelling, the sounds of blaster fire. 

 

Delamarre’s hands were on him, turning him over. He looked at her through blurry eyes. 

 

“I’m so sorry Elijah,” she said, crying. “It was Santharn, she wouldn’t stop, she thought you would be dangerous, a grown Force-sensitive wandering around the galaxy without a way to protect yourself.”  _Desperate times call for desperate measures._

 

“She never did think things through,” mumbled Elijah. “My death would have been a mercy. I no longer have anything to protect myself with.” His perception of the world was dimming, quietening. The river of the Force dulled down to a trickle and it carried away his memories of using it, eroding at the riverbank of his mind and carrying the sediment to somewhere unknown.

 

“I could not raise my blade against you,” she said, fierce and uncompromising. The last of the clones outside the council chamber were dead and he could hear the other Jedi talking about their course of action. Had he not been once of them? The memory slipped away.

 

The Force was gone. She gathered him in her arms, like she once had when he was a child, frightened by night terrors, and he quietly cried into the robes of the strange woman, grieving for losses that he no longer remembered.

  
  



End file.
